1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system and method for incorporating design behavior and external stimulus in microprocessor emulation model feedback using a shared memory. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for providing additional heuristics to an application executing on a device model during emulation, which results in a more detailed and real-life device emulation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Contemporary processors are complex integrated circuit systems that consist of millions of transistors. Two typical approaches to test these devices are to 1) use a general-purpose computer to simulate the device, and 2) use an emulator, which is a specific-purpose machine, to test the device's design logic.
A challenge found with using a general-purpose computer for simulation is that the simulation takes an enormous amount of time due to the device's complexity. Therefore, much of the device is not tested prior to fabrication due to schedule constraints.
A challenge found with using an emulator to test the device's design logic is that emulators are not able to test the physical operation of the device in great detail. For example, emulation systems have long operation periods where the emulation system is not able to poll data from the device under test. As a result, sophisticated buffering schemes are implemented such that the emulation runtime software performs checks during intervals when the device under test is not cycled.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method to test a device's complex design logic in an efficient and effective manner prior to fabrication.